Yesterday I wrotes about the reasons I’m experimenting with Standards Based Grading this term. Today I want to show how I’m planning to implement SBG in my classroom.
Because I was away in the last week of last term, we weren’t able to finish our unit on Pythagoras’ Theorem before the holidays. Because I was already planning to introduce SBG this term, I had already produced a list of skills and given them to the students before I left on the Year 7 & 8 camp.
Whenever I plan a unit (even before SBG), I like to copy the relevant standards and content descriptions from AusVELS, so I can clearly understand what I’m working towards:
I normally like to include content from levels above and below our year level, so I can cater for that range of student experience and ability. However, Pythagoras only starts at Level 9 in the Australian Curriculum, so I don’t have any previous levels this time.
From there I decided on my SBG skill list:
This week we did our first quiz, which I’m planning to do regularly on Thursdays. I’m enjoying being able to write questions that directly test each of the skills. I also like being able to set less questions while being able to demand higher quality responses from my students. Here’s one of the questions on that quiz, including a box for marking against the relevant skill:
I have finished “content teaching” for Pythagoras’ Theorem, so we are just starting a new unit on Expanding and Factorising. I like the scope that SBG gives to retesting skills, so I plan to include skills from both units in this week’s quiz. For the new unit I also have my AusVELS standards:
And my skill list:
So there we are, my first attempts at SBG. I’m sure this will need a lot of refinement over time. If anyone with more experience with SBG wants to give me any pointers or ideas, I would really appreciate it!